Columbia Encyclopedia: Kurds - a non-Arab Middle Eastern minority population that inhabits the region known as Kurdistan, an extensive plateau and mountain area in SW Asia (c.74,000 sq mi/191,660 sq km), including parts of E Turkey, NE Iraq, and NW Iran and smaller sections of NE Syria and Armenia.

Dictionary.com: Kurdistan - An extensive plateau region of southwest Asia. Since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, it has been divided among southeast Turkey, northeast Iraq, and northwest Iran, with smaller sections in Syria and Armenia.